CH-47 Fiberglass Rotor Blade Design and Fabrication

Production deliveries of the fiberglass rotor blade for the CH-47 Chinook helicopter willstart early in 1981. The blades will be installed on both military and commercial aircraft. This paper describes the design, fabrication, and quality control techniques required to produce flightworthy blades. It discusses the coordination required between Engineering, Manufacturing, and Quality Control and the technological and operational advancements learned from previous programs that are instrumental in fabricating a high-quality production rotor blade of advanced composite materials at low cost. The paper also summarizes the qualification bench, whirl, and flight tests. Achievement of design objectives such as improvements in performance, safety, damage tolerance, reliability, and maintainability was verified during qualification testing.